


starting slow

by bramblecircuit



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Illness, One-Shot, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:08:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9096577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblecircuit/pseuds/bramblecircuit
Summary: “No!” She pushed him away, growling in frustration. “We are dangerous!” “Our lives are dangerous! And you want me to walk away because of that?”What might've happened if Ethan and Vanessa had a little more time at the cottage that night.





	

“No!” She pushed him away, growling in frustration. “We are dangerous!”

“Our _lives_ are dangerous! And you want me to walk away because of that?” A crackle, like electricity, spun between them. For a moment, he’d felt their tumultuous power, and he knew neither of them had gotten enough. A lifetime of longing, culminating in what—restraint? “What do you fear, Vanessa?” He asked, gentler now.

 _Oh, what a question._ Where to start?

“Kindness.” She spit out the word like venom sucked from an ancient wound. “I don’t deserve the security you offer.”

Ethan pursed his lips, shook his head in amazement. He extended a hand to her. “Let’s try this again. I’ll start slow.” She shot him a look before vanishing the distance between them and slipping her her hand in his. He ran his thumb carefully over her fingers. Vanessa resisted the urge to snatch her hand away; he was nothing but soft to her, but her brain whispered that this would all end in peace if she’d let it. He’d start by breaking her fingers one by one, like stems of some unruly flower. He could move to the rest of her body, rendering her arms useless, stopping finally at her neck to finish off the job. A circlet of bruises adorning her in death.

“Is that any better?” His voice was warm, like a fireplace too far away to feel but near enough to watch.

“I’m waiting for you to hurt me.” She pulled her hand back, her skin still blushing from his touch. “I know you don’t like it, but that’s how I work.” She turned from him and took a seat at the table. “No amount of touch could repair me.”

Ethan took in a long, slow breath. It was going to be a difficult night.

* * *

“I replay those moments so frequently.” An edge of bitterness crept into her voice. “I treasure them beyond anything. Every kind word you’ve said to me—they are threadbare by now.” Ethan leaned forward, his elbows balanced on his knees.

“And if there were more of them?” It was an old longing in him, the routine of it—not to have to wait for fear to make her wild before she would seek refuge in his arms. She watched him chew on the idea, a painful earnestness on her face.

“I wouldn’t know how to handle it.” The words hung like wire drooping between two iron nails. He looked at her and understood the conflict: in Vanessa’s world, what would free him from his shackles would wither her. Above tenderness, she prized her own isolated safety.

Ethan didn’t know how to talk her out of that.

* * *

“Are you sure you’re comfortable with this?” Vanessa made no reply, only tilted her head upward and closed her eyes. Ethan tucked an unruly curl behind her ear before bending to kiss her. Between them, the lingering scent of rain and crushed leaves. Vanessa grabbed a fistful of fabric in her hand and pulled him closer. He tasted like a run through the woods, panicked and reverent and primal. She wanted to get lost in that forest, to listen to his heartbeat through the cool of the earth. She’d be free within him to let herself go.

Devour, consume, be consumed. It was fire enough to burn down a city. Barely keeping her desire in check, Vanessa yanked on his shirt and kissed him like an attack. He’d retaliate, she found herself thinking. Soon enough, he’d have to. She’d be helpless under his heat, charred by morning.

He pulled back. She couldn’t meet his gaze; his eyes, always expressive to her, radiated sadness.

“You kiss me like you’re starving for fangs. You lean your head back...like you’re asking me to rip out your throat.”

So he’d sensed that hunger in her. So what? She could tell him how seductive pain was, especially with him as its minister. He resisted the temptation to hold her face in his hands and gave her one last look instead, memorizing how she trembled, how it looked like she was fighting something terrible just to stand before him. Maybe…

“You deserve some rest, Vanessa.” He pushed the chair back into its place. “Been a long day.” He moved to walk her upstairs, but she flinched away.

“I’m sorry, I…” She gathered her skirts in her hands. “You did nothing wrong,” she said, carefully masking the tears in her voice. “Goodnight, Ethan.”

She left him standing there, his hands clasped, his head a whirl of confusion and worry and yearning. He’d try again. And again, and again—however long it took for Vanessa to believe she deserved kindness.

* * *

Vanessa sat on her bed, the events of the hours before her still pulsing through her veins. She wanted nothing more than to wake Ethan from the downstairs couch and kiss him senseless, her entire body wrapped around him until the two of them were one. But Ethan wouldn’t want that. Maybe his body would, but _he_ wanted something long-lasting for her, a peace with herself that would calm the torment she’d known since childhood.

Ethan Chandler. Her gunman. Her protector. The boy always waiting by her door.

Vanessa rifled through her bookshelf for a clean sheet of paper. Late as it was, she wanted something tangible to take to him tomorrow.

* * *

“Your turn. What’s this?” She held up a stalk from her basket. He plucked it from her fingers and squinted at it. “It’s…” He pinched a leaf between two fingers. “Yarrow?”

She smiled at him. “I shouldn't be surprised.”

“Well, I try my best to please.” He bent under a tree to keep up, but not before stealing one of its flowers and setting it in the basket. “For you.”

Vanessa felt her smile fading. She couldn’t help it; each time he did something sweet, she lost her faith in the moment. She was a casual observer to everything she wanted to keep closest.

“I made a list last night. Of what I’m afraid of.” Ethan gave her his full attention.

“Oh?”

“Yes, it’s…” She struggled to remember the first entry. “I don’t believe in softness. I can give it out, but when it’s handed to me…” She set the basket on the ground and knelt to pull out a root. “It vanishes.”

Ethan bit his lip, thinking. “And I have...a darkness in me. It convinces me to want my own destruction.” She scoffed at herself. “Absurd, I know, but it calls for blood and ruin and...and I listen.”

She took his hand. “I can touch you, but it’s when you touch me back that all hell breaks loose. I can kiss you, but only as something waiting to be unleashed.”

“You’re not a monster, Vanessa.” He knew that fear. “And there’s nothing wrong with ferocity. I don’t want to tame you. You are what you are.” He smirked at her. “I like it.”

Vanessa dropped the plant in her basket. “Then why won’t you let me—”

“It’s not healthy for you.” He cut her off. “Someone has to draw the line, and I don’t expect it to be you.” Ethan put a hand on her wrist. “I’m not criticizing what you are,” he said. “I just don’t want you to hurt so much.”

“And you think you can make that happen?”

He paused. “With time, yes.”

* * *

Vanessa wrapped her arms around him and pressed her head against his chest.

“This is what you wanted?”

“It’s the only thing that’s left.” _Safe,_ she’d meant to say. Her words were dim against the beat of his heart, and she tightened her grip on him involuntarily. He knew what to do—the pressure on her back was almost unbearably calming. When he rested his chin on her head, Vanessa felt she might crack like porcelain, a single line splintering from her eyes into a tangle of roots.

She looped her fingers into the excess of his shirt and prayed for his forgiveness.

“I need to learn you first.” Her words were barely audible. “If we want this to be any different…” Vanessa lost her grasp on the sentence and burrowed closer to his chest. There was so much complexity to him: the particular rhythm of his breaths, the scent of his clothing, how the gentle movement of his hands revived her like rain on a parched landscape.

“Different how?” Their voices were soft, murmurs in a harsher world.

“Less fear. Fewer shadows.” She could accept her own transformation, but only if she knew herself from the wreckage. No more wishes for death.

Ethan pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“Take your time.” He sensed a muted desperation in how tightly she held him; could he abate it? What would it take—his kiss on her collarbone, his fingers tangled in her hair? Maybe it would be something deeper, like traveling homeward and confronting the demons there as they clung to the walls.

She shifted slightly in his arms and sighed. This was the vulnerability she could offer him, almost childlike in how she clung to him. He accepted it, just as he accepted the angles of herself that made her weep. He would bandage the wounds and kiss around the bruises, and she would notice that the same self-loathing he wanted to save her from had a throne in him, too. She would love him on the full moon and he would hold her hands down during her nightmares and they would learn, together, how to make this work.

That’s what it meant to love Vanessa Ives.


End file.
